


there’s no end / i’m hellbent

by sysupportgroup



Series: the yoon magpies [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Space, Crimes & Criminals, Hacker Jeon Wonwoo, Hoshi's a tiger prince don't @ me, M/M, Prince Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Self-Lubrication, juno steel au, they're both assholes just embrace it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:01:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29000358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysupportgroup/pseuds/sysupportgroup
Summary: “Men are all the same,” Soonyoung sighs, shaking his head disappointedly, “give them a chance to play big bad saviour and you forget about everything else.”He actually looks back at Wonwoo this time, bottom lip drooping, “Oh, I have no idea about Tourney please teach me about it, I’d besograteful.”Wonwoo splutters, yanking at his binds in increasing rage, “You fucking tricked me!”“I just wanted to steal your car,” Soonyoung says sadly, “is that so wrong.”
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi
Series: the yoon magpies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127504
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86
Collections: South x Southwest: A Soonyoung/Wonwoo Prompt Fest





	there’s no end / i’m hellbent

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [soonwoo2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/soonwoo2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Soonyoung needs a ride across the country. It’s not hard to find, but he doesn’t expect to cross paths or join someone who’s on the run from the police. Especially not with public enemy #1 Jeon Wonwoo 
> 
> DO NOT INCLUDE: infidelity  
> Rating: any
> 
> Have fun :)
> 
> within the universe of _that's why we're making headlines_ and contains references to that fic but not necessary to read to know what's going on~ basically space criminals, lots of lgbts, sprinkling of mystery - posting unedited, will be back to fix it up
> 
> title inspired by church by aly & aj

“...  _ Prince of Toraas was reported missing at approximately 0300 hours this morning. No note was left behind nor ransom note found. The King has set the reward at one million credits for his son, last seen wearing - “ _

“Oi, the Tourney is on tonight! What’cha doin with the stream - it’s gonna start soon!”

“Apologies! J-Just give me a second - here we are - ”

“ _ \- representing Eidol, Shuhua Yeh! She’s been beating her own records with each Circlet - could this finally be the race that nets her a first podium? The betting odds aren’t shaping up well for her but hey, odds have been wrong before! Just before we cut to the next competitor, a message from our sponsor, TourneyWest: all bets will be due in the next hour so get them in quick!” _

The bar bursts into a quiet flurry of activity, people placing bets, changing them, peeking at others’ odds. No matter where Wonwoo is, at least he can rely on this constant - everyone loves a gamble.

_ “Now next into the arena, we have Tourney favourite Jaemin Na representing Glaciaio - would you look at that smile, folks! Coming off a brilliant podium streak in the - “ _

Excited burbling comes from the sudden surge of Tourney fanatics, all crowding towards the front to see the holoscreen. No one bothers to look at the back of the bar now - not the barkeep, not the rest of the customers, and certainly not the surveillance cameras now that Wonwoo’s positioned himself perfectly in its blind spot. 

Buried in the relative quiet and the obscurity it brings, Wonwoo takes a sip of his drink and smiles. 

When he’s on the run, there are three rules he has for keeping a low profile: 

One, nothing traceable. Burner comms, hijacked creds under a fake ID that leads nowhere, invisibility within a crowd. Check, check, check.

Two, no relationships. No making friends, no meeting family, no hook-ups no matter how pretty the face or how sweet the words. Once was more than enough to learn the lesson - sometimes he feels bad about that one Heltas he left grieving over his (fake) death.

Three, escape route always at the ready. A safehouse in the home of an old loner long gone to dust, a rich fucker’s ship with security as flippant as their attitude, a car covered in dust in the desert outskirts with an engine uncharacteristically ready and raring. 

Wonwoo knows all of these rules by heart - has had them etched into his bones, corked with his blood, soldered into his muscles. It would be a death knell to have it any other way - Intergalaxial Enforcement may not know his face but everything about that statement screams for a  _ yet _ . They’ve been getting better at following his trail each time he skips a planet and one day, close will be too close to get away. 

But being anonymous in a bar full of people fits perfectly into rule number one. Amongst all the bodies crammed in here tonight, who would take notice of a quiet office worker in the corner, sipping a drink all to himself. It’s the only reason he allowed himself this indulgence. 

Realistically, it doesn’t have to be an indulgence. If he laid off the hacking for a bit, gave it about ten Martians before he strikes again, it could be part of his quotidien. The recent split from the Archduke matter has left him pretty well off after all, money and blackmail-wise. More than enough to set up on some Outer Ring region and bide his time till - 

The thought makes his fingers twitch around his rum and coke, condensation dripping down his fingers. He tosses it back quickly and grimaces. No, not an option obviously. Wonwoo isn’t stupid enough to admit that he doesn’t know the dangers lurking within himself - who knows what he’d do if he got  _ bored _ . 

_ Remember the Solna Bank incident? _ Wonwoo can hear Jihoon mocking him already.  _ Fucking dumbass, can’t believe you thought you could handle going up against the largest bank in the System and winning. You still owe me for the damage control by the way - the next time you come back, Jun wants you to bring -  _

Blah, blah, blah. Wonwoo makes a mental note to postpone his next visit to the couple for another five decades at least. At least the list of extinct creatures Jun will want to make soup out of might have changed to something more doable then.

“Hey, sorry to bother you but - “

In his peripheral, he registers a hand sliding a drink onto the bar in all its long stem, pink and blue, cherry-on-top glory. A body climbs into the stool next to his, little curses accentuating every huff of breath from the exertion.

Great. Just great.

“Not interested.”

Wonwoo tucks his irritated sigh away somewhere deep inside himself, bemoaning his night cut short. He pushes his own empty glass towards the bartender’s side of the counter curtly and turns in his stool to leave. 

“Hey! What - I’m not done with you!”

Wonwoo stumbles, one leg caught.

“‘Done with me’?” He repeats slowly, turning back. It’s not good to expose his face to too many people but he has enough faith in his average looks - dark hair, glasses, humanoid - that they’d have to sift through at least a million other entities on this planet to find him - and by then he’d be far far away. “I already said I’m not interested, I don’t think I owe you anything.”

“Ugh I - I didn’t mean it like that!” The stranger groans, hand shaking slightly around his drink as he takes a nervous sip from it, unintentionally draining half the glass. “You don’t know what I want by the way, how do you know you’re not interested?”

“There aren’t very many reasons a stranger would start a conversation in a bar.” Wonwoo says pointedly enough that the stranger flushes at his frankness. “Either that or you’re trying to sell me something and I’m not looking to invest in the ‘next big thing in Old Martian tech’.”

“It’s not that.” The stranger scowls. “It’s not any of that.” 

He mutters something petulant under his breath as he tips the rest of his drink in his mouth, unhappy pout marring his expression: _galaxies why is this so hard… just wanted to..._

Wonwoo chews on the inside of his cheek, the only flaw in his mask of indifference, “...what is it then?”

“I had a question.”

He peers out, shy and a still little sullen, from under his hat and there’s so much beguiling _softness_ to his face that Wonwoo finds himself melting a little around the sides. 

“What the hell is Tourney?”

//

It takes Wonwoo five seconds to register the shock that is someone in the galaxy _not_ knowing what Tourney is. 

It takes him another forty-five minutes, lured by the magnetism of disbelief and an undercurrent fizz of attraction, for him to explain the sport to Hoshi. Attempt to explain the sport at least. Even when it’s time for podiums, Hoshi is still leaning in and asking, “So how many laps do they do again?”

From then, Wonwoo gives up and maybe Hoshi does too. It only takes another pitiful twenty minutes of flirty banter for Wonwoo to close his eyes and come to terms with the fact that he’s definitely-probably breaking Rule Number 3 tonight, just in time for Hoshi to hook his ankle around Wonwoo’s and murmur, “You know, maybe you were right after all. People only start a conversation for two reasons and I’m not gonna sell you anything so…”

“You’re terrible,” Wonwoo says, a little hot under the ears as he climbs off his stool - this time extending a hand to help Hoshi off, “let’s get out of here.”   
  


//

The thing is that Wonwoo knows his three rules well. Regurgitate them in his sleep well, incessant shower thoughts well, wake up in a cryopod a million years and still be reciting them on his wake well. But there’s a difference between knowing them and obeying them and that chasm lies neatly between head and heart. The mind knowing but body unwilling. Or maybe just his dick. 

“Mine?” Wonwoo murmurs, head filled with nothing but static and fuzz from the way Hoshi is pressed up against him in this seedy alley right next to the bar as they wait for the taxi. At least he had the forethought to move them to somewhere camera-free. “Or yours?”

“Um,” Hoshi giggles and nips at Wonwoo’s ear, loosening his button-up where it was tucked into his pants and snaking a hand upwards to trail hot knuckles across his waist, “mine’s far. Super far.”

“Really? You gonna get back okay after…” 

It’s just a courtesy ask. Wonwoo will be planetside by the time the sun rises, the least he has to do after breaking a rule like this. 

“It’ll be fine,” Hoshi chirps, all too confident for someone who’s been plenty unsure about other life basics earlier - who _doesn’t_ have a comms? - “you’ll give me a ride, won’t you?”

If Wonwoo were more unaffected by the way Hoshi immediately dives for his mouth after saying that, he’d be turning that particular statement over a lot more carefully in his mind. Trying to walk that balance between still getting his dick wet tonight and managing expectations. It’s a little bit of an asshole move but if he weren’t an asshole, he wouldn’t be very good at his job.

As it turns out though, Hoshi’s mouth is much too overwhelming - wet, warm and distracting - for Wonwoo to expend much thought on it. Forget cognitive capacities, there are more important locations for his blood to be flowing to. For instance - getting his limbs moving into the taxi, continuing to scandalise the driver for the entire ride and paying the overcharge for it, navigating to ‘his’ apartment with Hoshi conveniently attached to his face the entire time... 

More important locations indeed. 

“Fuck,” Wonwoo groans into Hoshi’s neck, pinning him to the back of his front door, hands sliding into his back pockets and getting a proper squeeze of his ass, “fuck, you’re so hot.”

“Yeah?” Hoshi pants against his jaw, rolling his hips up against Wonwoo’s. “You’re not too bad yourself, Mr I’m-Not-Interested.”

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?” Wonwoo laughs, drawing his head back to look at Hoshi’s face. Sparkling eyes, a mischievous grin, a drop of sweat rolling down his hairline. God, Wonwoo _wants_. “Want me to make it up to you?”

“If you think you can,” Hoshi sings sweetly, wrapping his arms around Wonwoo’s neck and hitching a leg up around his hip. His pupils contract, dark yellow slits for a moment, and Wonwoo catalogues it away in the back of his mind. He hasn’t exactly asked for Hoshi’s species upfront - even he’s not that much of an asshole - but he reckons he’s good enough to have a decent guess for the purposes of the bedroom, “come on, we don’t have all night.”

“Definitely not,” Wonwoo snorts and hefts Hoshi into his arms, mouth ticking up into a cocky smile with the way Hoshi shrieks in protest. The way his dick twitches doesn’t escape Wonwoo though, “got a kink you wanna mention?”

“Shut up, why are you so buff?” Hoshi thumps at his back ineffectually before Wonwoo places him down on his bed as gently as he can. “So not fair, did they make you in a lab or something?”

“All human, baby.” Wonwoo snickers, letting Hoshi swarm for his clothes with a frantic intensity that’s as terrifying as it is attractive. He lets his mind wander, flicking through a mental encyclopedia of the species he’s come across before. 

Somewhere between his shirt, pants and underwear uniting with the floor, Wonwoo decides _something feline maybe_ before Hoshi’s nails, just a hint of claw, are raking across his back and that turns into a _definitely_.

Wonwoo licks his lips, knee up on the bed to cage Soonyoung down on the mattress. Oh this will be fun.

“Do you have a preference?” Wonwoo says lowly, raking his fingers through the path of hair around Hoshi’s ear and he moans so sweetly Wonwoo wants nothing more than to sink into him in that instant. “God, you’re so pretty. I must’ve been out of my mind to say I wasn’t interested in someone as gorgeous as you.”

It’s only a little bit funny, the way Hoshi shivers all over again, looking up at Wonwoo with those sparkling eyes, wide and trusting. Bullseye with the praise kink then. “Whatever you want.”

“Yeah?” Wonwoo mouths at his neck, fumbling Hoshi’s shirt off and trailing sloppy-wet kisses down his chest, pausing to tug at a nipple with his teeth. He has the prettiest reactions, vocal and a hint of a purr when Wonwoo licks him somewhere he really likes. The definition of indulgence really. “You sure about that baby?”

“Oh God, yeah.” Hoshi groans, wiggling furiously to shrug his pants off. Wonwoo helps him tug at them, scattering kisses across every centimetre of thigh revealed until clawpoints are pricking him hard in the shoulders, drawing his attention back up. 

“Actually wait,” he says breathlessly, sheen of sweat over his body glistening pretty in the lowlight of the bedroom, “I think I’ll die if I don’t get your cock in me. We can switch next time, okay?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo lies, humouring him, “we can do that. Next time. How do you want me?”

“Just like this,” Hoshi flips them so he’s straddling Wonwoo’s stomach, one hand fumbling backwards to grab Wonwoo’s dick, steadying it against his hole beseechingly, “I’m wet already so we can just - “

He notches Wonwoo’s cockhead against his rim, and Wonwoo finds his arms flying up out of instinct, bracketing Hoshi’s hips with his hands to steady him. He swallows hard when he feels the lubrication from Hoshi’s hole trickling down his dick, lust threatening to consume him whole.

“Are you sure you’re - “

Hoshi makes an indignant noise like he’s _insulted_ that Wonwoo keeps asking for consent. Treats it like a challenge apparently when he decides to just sink down, eyes screwing up tight and mouth opening wide in a soundless gasp as Wonwoo breaches him. He’s tight and wet and so _warm_ inside, Wonwoo’s half afraid he won’t last. It’s been a while since that Heltas after all. 

“Fuck,” he grits out, “oh my - fuck. Slow down baby, you don’t have to take it all at once.”

“Ah,” Hoshi groans, chin dropped down to his chest as he curls his shoulders in, shuddering around Wonwoo, “f-feels good though, stretching me so good.”

“Yeah?” It’s hard to say that the ego-boost doesn’t go straight to his dick. Wonwoo’s fingers tighten more around Hoshi’s hips, cooing platitudes as he helps ease him down until Hoshi’s ass is flush with his lap. Wonwoo holds him there for a second, waiting for the other to catch his breath as he sucks marks down the side of his neck like tracks on a map leading to treasure. 

Hoshi’s chest expands and contracts in big puffs, pressing warm skin to Wonwoo’s in regular intervals and it’s. Nice. Sweet, almost. He hasn’t been this intimate in a long time and it’s nearly too much, getting an overload of touch like this all at once. Wonwoo finds himself matching Hoshi’s breaths - in, out, in, out - and tries to rein himself in. 

“You’re so tight around me,” Wonwoo shudders out and it rings more sincere than the dirty talk he expected, “can’t believe I lucked out like this.”

“Tourney’s good for something, huh?” Hoshi laughs shakily. His hand flies to Wonwoo’s jaw, briefly cupping his face before the touch is gone as quick as it came, only phantom fingers lingering.

Hoshi shuffles a little, raising himself up on his knees and drawing Wonwoo out cautiously until it’s just the head and then dropping himself down again. They moan in tandem, Wonwoo briefly losing control of his faculties and digging his teeth into Hoshi’s shoulder and that apparently gets Hoshi going like nothing else. 

His efforts become a lot more concentrated, more targeted. Eyes focussing to a laser point as he picks up speed, bracing himself on Wonwoo’s broad shoulders and bouncing in his lap like a machine, like he does this on the daily. Wonwoo is the one who needs a minute now, throwing his head back and staring teary-eyed at the ceiling as Hoshi clenches, vice-tight, on his next descent.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbles, sitting up more and moving a hand from Hoshi’s side to Hoshi’s pink cock, pumping it frantically. He hopes it’s similar enough to a human one that he’s doing a passable job at least, “fuck I’m getting close, you feel so good.”

“Me too,” Hoshi huffs, leaning forward so that their foreheads are touching. Again, his eyes are dilated, dark yellow slits blinking wetly at Wonwoo, “touch me? Here?”

He takes Wonwoo’s hand off his cock and guides it gently up his body to his nipples and oh - Wonwoo can _definitely_ do that and one better.

He leans forward to take a nub in his mouth, rolling the other between his fingers, and feels more than hears Hoshi keen into his neck. His ass is clenching so tight around Wonwoo, he’s starting to feel a little more faint, a little more frantic with the urge to at least ensure that Hoshi gets a good time too. 

“Let me see you play with yourself,” he urges, leaning back and getting a good eyeful of Hoshi’s nipple, left swollen and spit-slick from his mouth. He gets his hands on Hoshi’s hips again, manually fucking him up and down on his cock as the other obliges, pinching at his own chest as Wonwoo punches sobs out of him with every thrust, “fuck, you look so pretty right now, want to see you cum all over yourself for me. Can you, baby? Let me see you fall apart.”

“I - “ Hoshi hiccups after a particularly vicious thrust, arching his back dramatically and practically presenting his nipples to Wonwoo’s eager mouth, “I - oh fuck, yes, coming, I’m coming - “

All it takes is a graze of teeth across Hoshi’s chest and he’s gone, snapped like a rubber band stretched too far as his cock pulses, dripping cum between their bodies as he tightens up and milks Wonwoo’s dick of its own orgasm. 

Wonwoo whites out for like ten minutes before he can even think about cleaning them up. 

When he gets his mental faculties back together, Hoshi is already dropping off to sleep, eyes barely open as Wonwoo dabs at their bodies with a damp cloth. 

“You know,” he mumbles, one hand catching on Wonwoo’s bicep, touch sleepy and soft, “I don’t - did I get your name?”

Wonwoo pauses, the slightest bit of hesitation, before he stamps it down and straightens up to wash the cloth out in the sink. He can pretend he didn’t hear him this time but what if he’s the clingy type when Wonwoo has to face him in bed, the kind that insists on putting a face to the name? He can’t afford to lose another fake ID on a hookup.

Turns out the worry is for naught - when he gets back, excuses hovering on his tongue, Hoshi is already asleep. Wonwoo curls up next to him, their backs to each other, and wonders why he nurses something aching and disappointed in his chest as he drifts off to sleep.

//

At 0300 exactly, Wonwoo’s comms is nice enough to electrocute him.

“Nghh.” he mumbles under his breath, trying to navigate the dark with bedhead and blurry vision. Hoshi’s prone body is still lifting the covers up and down with his steady breathing, face slack and soft, and in another world, another universe, maybe Wonwoo could stay. 

In this life though, he has places to be.

He lets himself ponder over that thought for a second before he rolls out of the bed, trying to disrupt the covers as little as possible. He knows all too well the danger that sentiment brings. 

The plan for yet another perfect escape is this: He can get away with a brief wash-up maybe, a visit to the bathroom to mess with his appearance a little and decide who he wants to be for the next planet, and then he’ll grab his bag and be out the door. The apartment’s actual owner has a car parked in their apartment-assigned spot in the garage - shouldn’t be too tough to rewire that to get him to the ports and then to _appropriate_ one of the fresh works from the portside ship mechanics to get him off the surface. 

Wyv is nice this time of year, he hears. He looks back at the bed and allows him exactly ten seconds to wonder before turning away. This time tomorrow, he’ll be starting all over again. 

//

The thing about perfect escapes, Wonwoo muses, gunning the gas and making the car veer angrily to the left, is that they really are just a figment of the imagination. 

“Pull over! Pull over! By Order 598B of the Intergalaxial Enforcement Act, you are harbouring a wanted entity - “

Harbouring a wanted entity? Hilarious, he _is_ the wanted entity. 

Undeterred, he keeps his foot on the gas, one eye on the meter and the other on his rearview mirror. They’ve pulled out a whole division for this one - nothing less than Wonwoo deserves for a criminal of his calibre, of course - but Wonwoo’s still humble enough to be flattered. 

A sniper leans out the window of the leading armoured car and Wonwoo grits his teeth, wishing for portside to come faster. There’s something in the plan that went wrong, something he must’ve miscalculated. He just doesn’t know what it is. 

“Do not shoot to kill!” The commander of the division is hollering at his men through a speakerphone as the first shots come, pockmarks of bullets denting the sand around his tires. “Do not shoot to kill!”

Again, flattered. Wonwoo doesn’t plan on spending the rest of his natural life rotting in a cell hacking and building things for Enforcement though - as Jeonghan would say, retirement should be far sexier than that. 

Both hands off the wheel, he reaches across to the passenger seat where his duffle is, rummaging around for his disabler. It’s a good low-tech option for chases, works on ships or vehicles of any sort, jamming any sort of signal so that anything automated goes haywire. Enforcement cars may be proofed against most modern weapons of war but Wonwoo’s confident they’ve never seen anything like this before.

He wraps his fingers around the black box and raises his eyes to the terrain. A surge of panic roils through him - whilst he was distracted, some of the armoured cars broke free from the pack, circling around the sides to entrap his vehicle within their swarm. It’s coming up fast. No way to avoid a collision now, no chance this tiny Hondas is going to pull through against one hundred and twenty kilograms of Enforcement tech, no time to say his final words goodbye - 

“Come on!”

Pale arms shoot out from behind the driver’s seat, trapping Wonwoo in as disembodied hands jerk the steering wheel violently. The car protests, screeching metallically in a plea for respite as it neatly flips over itself twice and shoots out of the encroaching circle of cars.

Mechanically, Wonwoo enters his security code on the disabler, aims behind and flips the switch. In the black dust, the armoured pack splutters to a halt, all control lost as they ram each other into a stop. 

“Did you just freeze up?” The disembodied hands chatter, words curt and disbelieving despite the air of relief that takes over the car, still in control of the steering wheel. Wonwoo stares at them in disbelief - pudgy fingers, soft palms, manicured nails - his own hands slackening around his disabler, still in shock. He’s suddenly conscious that _surely_ the hands have to attach _to someone_ , swinging around sharply to get an eyeful of their source and sees - 

//

He wakes up, bound and splayed across the backseat with a terrible headache and numb shoulders.

He’s been replaced in the driver’s seat by someone dressed in his own clothes - yes, he’d fucking know his yellow and pink windbreaker anywhere - head of dark hair bobbing along to the radio.

“You _tricked_ me?”

“To be fair,” says Hoshi - _Soonyoung_ , motherfucking Prince of Toraas, “you’re kind of an asshole. And really predictable.” 

He doesn’t look back at him, steering straight as an arrow as they bumble across the black desert sand, maybe twenty minutes from portside, 

Wonwoo makes an insulted noise, “Fuck you, I’m not - “

“Men are all the same,” Soonyoung sighs, shaking his head disappointedly, “give them a chance to play big bad saviour and you forget about everything else.”

He actually looks back at Wonwoo this time, bottom lip drooping, “Oh, I have no idea about Tourney please teach me about it, I’d be _so_ grateful.”

Wonwoo splutters, yanking at his binds in increasing rage, “You fucking tricked me!”

“I just wanted to steal your car,” Soonyoung says sadly, “is that so wrong.”

“It’s _my_ car.”

“Well, if we’re being technical it was - “ Soonyoung fumbles with the glovebox and peers at the insurance documents folded up in there, “Changkyun Lim’s car.” 

Wonwoo’s mouth shapes around soundless words. “He wasn’t using it.”

“Neither were you obviously,” Soonyoung scowls, “can’t believe you nearly got us caught, slowpoke. I even had to blow my cover for you, jeez.”

“I had it handled!” Wonwoo snaps defensively, straining hard against the fabric wrapped around his wrists. Now that he’s back here, he can see properly where Soonyoung hid himself - the spare oxygen tankards he had under the seat are removed, a cavity hollowed out enough to fit a stretchy body - and he’s absolutely kicking himself for not having checked earlier. 

“You definitely did not have it handled,” Soonyoung snorts. When he turns his head to look out the window, Wonwoo can see the line of hickies he made last night blooming against his skin, stark purple in the rising sun. It’s disconcerting, reconciling the panting glassy-eyed man he had on him just a few hours ago with the steel eyes this one has on, “we’d be out of here an hour ago if you had it handled.”

“Well if _someone_ hadn’t thrown off my weight calculations - “

“Are you calling me heavy!”

“No I - “ 

Wonwoo growls and kicks the car door in a fit of anger when he finds he can’t get anywhere. “Is this really the conversation we want to have right now?”

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung says huffily, nose in the air like the fucking _prince_ he is, “is it, Wonwoo Jeon?”

There’s ice in his veins. He says, still: “I never gave you my name.”

“I never gave you mine.” Soonyoung says coolly, looking straight ahead. “But I’m sure you know it by now.”

“...One million credits is a lot. Were you lucky or did you plan it, me not putting two and two together in time.”

Soonyoung purses his lips and says nothing. 

Wonwoo lets the silence lie for five seconds before straining to sit up, sneering, “So what’s your plan here, huh? What’s stopping me from going up to the nearest portside security and claiming the bounty? If you know my name, you know what I do and you _will_ know I’m damn good at it - I’m not scared.”

“Not even if I ring up the Archduke and let him know I have someone _of interest_ to him?” Soonyoung bites back. His knuckles are white around the steering wheel. “Friend of the family, you see.”

“You’d be revealing yourself as well,” Wonwoo shakes his head, mocking grin twisting up his face, “let’s be real here _Your Highness_ , I think we both know who’s got the stronger hand.”

“...I’ll pay you then.” Soonyoung locks eyes with him in the rearview mirror. “I’ll pay you to help me escape, to lose their trail at least.”

“You can afford more than one million?”

“Not money,” Soonyoung grits his teeth, glaring daggers at Wonwoo, so far away from the troubled coy stranger he’d bedded last night, “information. That’s what you hackers like, right? Keeps things interesting?”

“What information could you possibly have that I couldn’t find for myself?” Wonwoo snorts derisively. “If it exists on the web, it doesn’t stand a chance against me.” 

“What if it’s not on the web?” Soonyoung counters, licking his lips. “What if it’s information normally stored off-grid, maybe in a high security data vault somewhere?”

“What?” Wonwoo bolts up as high as he can get himself. “You mean…”

“Yeah. Morpheus Maximum-Security Data.” Soonyoung twists the wheel violently, sending them squealing to a stop next to a bunch of industrial sized metal crates. Portside is right outside. “I know how to get in.”

A crackle of static from outside and a radio, perched on top of one of the crates, comes to life: _A message from TourneyWest - don’t wait for tomorrow when you can take a chance on today! Bets are open from…_

Wonwoo swings his head back to Soonyoung, looking him over with equal parts disdain and anxiety. A runaway prince who knows the secret to penetrating the impenetrable? Who somehow knows who Wonwoo is? And was some of the best sex Wonwoo’s ever had?

His mouth twitches. Soonyoung eyes him warily. 

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine, I’ll help you escape. In exchange, you tell me what you know about Morpheus, about how you know who I am, about why you’re running.”

“How do I know you won’t run once we leave this car?”

“...didn't you learn anything from Tourney?”

“What?”

Wonwoo smirks: “Everyone loves a gamble.”


End file.
